To utterly no one's surprise, the August jobs report is bleak. Just more than 50,000 jobs were lost overall, but that was mostly because of the foreseen end of temporary employment by the Census Bureau. Private companies added 67,000. June and July figures were also revised up, but it's all not nearly enough to drive the unemployment rate down.

It went up by 0.1%, to 9.6%, an increase that is actually less indicative of the number of employed than of the fact that more Americans started looking for jobs again in August. That more people were looking might be a good sign for somewhere down the road, but not for the immediate future – in other words, for the election period.

Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former Clinton domestic policy adviser, was quoted in the Washington Post this morning stating the political reality bluntly: "Substantively," he said, "there is nothing [the Obama team] could do between now and election day that would have any measurable effect on the economy. Nothing."

That is true. So they are trying at least now to do something symbolic. News broke in the Post yesterday of White House plans for a new stimulus bill. Wait, did I say stimulus? No, it's not stimulus. It's not called that anyway. And it's not spending. Probably.

It's all tax decreases. An extension of a research credit for new-technology businesses that would amount to $100m and a payroll-tax holiday for all small businesses that totes up to $300m. There is some talk that they might try to salt some infrastructure spending in there, but everyone knows that's going nowhere, so it would be politically counterproductive even to mention it.

These aren't bad ideas. Many liberals agree that a payroll-tax holiday, in particular, is useful and stimulative and can help foster hiring. What I don't understand is, why has it taken this long?

Even putting aside the substantive problems of the economy, it has been politically clear for some time now that, in addition to the economy, taxes were going to be an issue this fall, too – namely, the question of what to do about the Bush tax cuts, which are up for renewal.

Obama wants to keep the cuts for 98% of Americans but end the cuts for households above $250,000. The Republicans, of course, will turn this into a socialistic tax increase on all Americans, or at the very least, he's coming for your money next. Democrats, surprise surprise, are afraid.

So, the Democrats have needed a way to argue two things. First, we do have ideas about helping the economy that don't involve more massive federal spending (which has worked, but on which they've completely lost the PR argument). Two, that we have tax cuts that we like.

This new White House proposal can counter what will be the Republican push this fall. But I think it could have countered that push a lot more strongly if it had been unveiled in May, or even February. Republicans in congress would have been put in the position of having to decide whether to vote against tax cuts.

It would have called their bluff. If they opposed tax cuts, they were hypocrites. If they supported them, then Obama gained the PR victory of making them accede to one of his plans. It would have been win-win for Democrats politically, besides which, a big payroll-tax holiday passed back then might have had an impact on the economy by now.

It's too late for substance. It just barely might not be too late, politically. But things didn't have to come to this on either front.